Most helpful customer reviews

While Perl is an important language for web programmers, I feel that it should be learned in whole and not in a small reference. The "Visual Blueprint" series has its purpose, however "Perl: Your visual blueprint for building Perl scripts" does not explain many important advanced tasks that Perl programmers often get into.I enjoy the aesthetic quality of the Maran Graphics' books, and have nothing against this book. However, serious programmers who want to learn much more of Perl and CGI should take a look at Perl How to Program by the Deitels. It is much more effective in teaching Perl theory as well as giving you a lot examples that are complex enough to use multiple ideas. The Complete Perl Training Coarse (also from the Deitels) is very effective as well.I am still a child, but I have explored many server-side programming technologies (Java Servlets, Applets, JSP, CGI, and Perl) and feel that I am expierenced enough to review this book.

This is an excellent book if you want a straight forward, no nonsense guide to building Perl scripts. The book does not go into very much theory behind Perl. It does exactly as the cover describes, it gives you a "Visual (step by step) Blueprint" for building problem solving scripts. I liked this book because it was broken down very well into modules that get right to the point and show you what you need to know to solve the problem quickly and efficiently. However, these are basic scripts. To learn the theory behind Perl I would reccomend Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz.

I think that this is an excellent book for someone who already programs in Perl, but is looking to anchor and increase his/her knowledge via a different learning approach.I found the format of this book to be very intuitive. I think that the book can be highly useful for many intermediate-level Perl programmers.Before judging the book based on these reviews, make sure you get to browse it for 20 minutes to see if the book's content and instruction approach fit your needs.

This is not a book to learn Perl from. The inherent problem with this book is the author tries to give you a practical problem and then a way in Perl to solve the problem.Compared to other instructional Perl books I found this one lacking the structure needed to learn the language.It may be just me. Maybe these visual blueprint books are not the way I learn. I just know that this one will sit on my shelf collecting dust.

This whole series is great for Developers who learn from example. This book gets to the point, without boring you with too much text.... but gives you more information than just syntax. You don't get the "crafty commentary" as you would in the Wall/Christansen books that lets you into the background and practicality of Perl, but this one is still worth taking a look at.